From my experience... the PB charger did affect the life of my battery (in a 8530). My battery was already on a slippery slope of destruction anyway. but after using the pb charger for 3 days, the battery life halved (from 12 hours to about 6). the battery also started to swell up (preventing the cover from closing completely).

I attribute this to the heat generated from the fast charge. Its been extra warm around here and the battery got pretty hot a few times.

I just replaced the battery a few days ago and all seems fine now. But I'm willing to bet that the battery is still overheating and as a result, reducing it's life overall.

I think i remember a sticker on my charger that said to only use it on the playbook on not other BB devices... but I did probably what most of you have, completely ignored the warning, ripped off the sticker and charged my PB as fast as I could!

Sure it could have been entirely coincidental that my battery gave up precisely once I started using the PB charger... but my intuition tells me otherwise.

As an aside to those talking about the limiting functions of the charging circuit... I believe it just shuts off the charging cycle once the battery is full (drop to trickle mode) If it limited the current, the rapid charging simply wouldn't charge any faster.

Food for thought... the battery is a consumable non-warranty part. What would RIM care about reduced battery life? Except more battery sales at really high mark-ups. The battery probably won't explode from those charging rates, so liability isn't a factor.

I personally have no issues with reduced life if it means I can charge my phone completely while getting ready in the morning!

But to say it doesn't affect the battery AT ALL, is a bit naive in my opinion.

Food for thought... the battery is a consumable non-warranty part. What would RIM care about reduced battery life? Except more battery sales at really high mark-ups. The battery probably won't explode from those charging rates, so liability isn't a factor.

No, but they're advertising the convenience of the faster charger while neglecting to mention the effect on battery health.

Canadian Tire sells a line of rechargeable alkaline batteries - charging them in a NiMH charger or using them in high-drain applications like a digital camera will dramatically reduce battery health (way more than using a PB charger on your BB), but this is not made widely known because it would make the batteries inconvenient and affect sales. Reading the reviews shows a large amount of people either using these batteries in the wrong charger or in the wrong application and complaining of poor performance and leaking batteries.

has no one ever seen the car battery charger? The type with several amperage settings? This is not a new concept......

I'm an engineer, and could go into a long dissertation of electrical theory and explain how a Blackberry charger will charge a Playbook, and that a Playbook charger will charge a Blackberry. It has been my experience that some non-engineer, non-technical, or just a plain moron of sort will debate me on the issue, so I'll pass on wasting my time with that.

I will say this, what I do not recommend is sitting on the couch, with WiFi, Bluetooth activated and browsing, multi-tasking, video watching with the screen brightness maxed out, charging a low battery with a standard Blackberry phone charger. This could, I repeat, could have a permanent negative effect to the Playbook itself. Not the battery, but the Playbook. I'll use a phone charger on the Playbook when the Playbook is idle, and a Playbook charger on a phone anytime it's available (removing the phone after charging says complete - do not leave phone on the charger for extended periods)

As a general rule, trickle charging is healthy for batteries, and rapid charging is bad. Worse is leaving a battery on a charger beyond the time required for obtaining a complete charge.

As a general rule, trickle charging is healthy for batteries, and rapid charging is bad. Worse is leaving a battery on a charger beyond the time required for obtaining a complete charge.

While I agree with the first two points, but leaving a device on charge past full isn't an issue these days because most electronics uses Li-Ion batteries which are smart, otherwise that last part holds true on NiMH. NiMH are a pain to take care of because if it doesn't completely drain before you charge it, it shortens its duration but with Li-Ion you can top up as often as you want- that is until it wears out (average life span of a Li-Ion battery is about 2.5 years, which has been on schedule with several that I've used).

That is if the device is turned off. Leaving the device on while charging will cause the charger to continuesly top off. Thats not good for the battery.
The electronics are smart enough to keep people from getting hurt. For me I will charge at a faster rate, create more heat and lose a few charge cycles.

everyone is trying to disprove this saying the battery is intelligent etc which is funny as he is right, but he just not explained it properly, it is nothing to do with ruining the battery and it also a long term problem not short term

rechargeable batteries have a battery life, its usually like 4000 charges at its optimum input charging rating, the more powerful the charger you use, the more strain it put on charging on the cells of the battery and the life span of the battery can deteriorate

so you CAN use the chargers and there is no problem with it, i would just not use it as my charger of preference, i use it when i need a quick charge or late to go out as its not a problem to use it from time to time, just dont use it as a preferred way of charging.

its the same with my playbook rapid charging stand, it works at an output of 12v - 2a which is much faster then the 5v - 2a output of the yellow tipped mains adaptor that is supplied and if i used the rapid desktop charger for RIM everyday i am sure i would shorten the battery life of the built in battery of my playbook also, you just have to use common sense when frequently recharging your devices and make sure you are not always quick charging but only when you need to.

stop the scare mongering and just read up about things and be cautious with rapid charging devices too frequently.

I would like to know that too but i am not brave enough to try it myself to see!

I have been using the PB charger for my torch going on 6 months now. Probably about 150 charge cycles. To me the benefits outweigh the cost of a few charges cycles. There are to many variables for anyone to say for certain how it would affect an individual user. Just charge it.

I'm going to have to disagree with the OP, I've been using my PlayBook charger on my 9650 for almost six months now with no problems. I would think by now something would have come down from RIM concerning this, but with RIM........you never know. Everything is working fine on my end.

I see a lot post on crackberry regarding chargers and I just dont get it. I have a kindle charger in one room a 9900 charger in another place my playbook charger and an htc sensation charger (sold the phone for my 9900!) in another place. I properly condition my batteries and I just use the charger thats closest to my hand whenever I plug anything in and all my devices work perfectly fine...maybe years ago this made a difference but with newer devices it simply doesnt make a significant difference.

This is probably the best answer I've seen in this thread because it provides a list, supposedly provided by RIM, which clarifies which phones can handle the 1.8A output of the charger.

It's not as simple as the connector fitting the device, obviously. The battery charging circuit in the phone itself must be properly designed for the input. There exists a USB spec for this which all CE mfrs will follow in designing their products. In this case you're talking about USB Battery Charger spec v1.1 which allows a max of 1.8A

A later spec v1.2 reduced that to 1.5A, so it's important to know which your phone is designed to.

Obviously can't go wrong sticking with the supplied charger that came with the phone or the approved list from RIM in the link above, but I wouldn't venture beyond that for fear of cooking a battery or overruning a charger circuit in the device.